Hi Steve, I had the same problem this morning and throughout the day - over 40 trackbacks from two url's that weren't active.

IMHO, this is a test by spammers to find out if they can get the same results they get with comment spam. With the new "nofollow" tag coming soon, they're gonna need to regroup and double up on their efforts, hoping to hit blogs that don't implement nofollow.

Like email spam, trying to stop them will only lead to more creative methods.

Hi Paul,

That is what Cindy was saying too.

Hopefully we will find a way to stay on top of it. I'd hate to see spammers ruin blogging like they have pretty well done to email.

Best Regards,
Steve MacLellan

Hi Steve, did you read this article from The Register? Interview with a link spammer

Notice how the guy/gal justifies what he/she's doing?

Thanks for the link Paul. He/she says:

"The question of morals is one for the individual. While it's legal, it will continue. It could be argued that a website owner is actually inviting content to their site when they allow comments."

That's always been the way, though. Even murderers' try to justify their actions.

Claims of it being legal are questionable, I would think. I doubt the reporter consulted a lawyer regarding what intellectual property consists of, so to have a spammer and an uneducated reporter claim that it is legal doesn't make it so in my opinion.

Of course "intellectual property" is a broad term that includes inventions, discoveries, know-how, processes, methods, materials, copyrightable works, original data, and other creative or artistic works (which may have value). A Blog could be argued to be a creative endeavor.

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is "is a system for identifying content objects in the digital environment" and I feel a blog would fit the definition of a creation. It says:

Creations:
Entities which are products of human imagination and/or endeavor in which intellectual property rights exist; resources made by human beings, rather than other types of resource (natural objects, people, places, events, etc). These may be manifested as Digital Objects, Physical Packages, Spatio-temporal Performances, or Abstract Works. They correspond to intellectual property as defined by the World Intellectual Property Organization: "creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce".

Of course, I don't have any legal expertise, but I feel quite strongly that a lawyer versed in intellectual property would be able to define this as illegal, and punishable.

Best Regards,
Steve MacLellan

There is a plugin to prevent these recent spam attacks available for MT users and found here.

Here is how it works:

mt-proxyplug when installed on a MovableType system will act as a 'CommentFilter'. Every comment submission is passed through it, before it is committed to the database. The plugin will inspect the remote IP address of the system that submits the comment. First it will check if there is a "X-Forwarded-For:" header item in the current comment submission request. The mere presence of the header field is an indication that stuff is being submitted through a proxy server. It will then query the Distributed Sender Blackhole List and the Blitzed Open Proxy Monitor List for entries for the submitting remote IP address. If either one knows about the IP address, then we assume that the comment comes from a known public proxy system.

Any MovableType users are sure to benefit from using this plugin. Basically all you need to do is FTP the Perl script into your plugin directory.

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